


feels like floating

by diviningthestorm



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Future Fic, Marriage, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, peace treaty au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 12:42:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13524504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diviningthestorm/pseuds/diviningthestorm
Summary: When Rose finally meets Rey, all she can think is how small she looks. Later, Rey tells her she thought the same thing.





	feels like floating

When Rose finally meets Rey, all she can think is how _small_ she looks. Later, Rey tells her she thought the same thing.

During the war, they have little time. It begins with a similar need to laugh away the darkness – late nights spent telling dumb jokes until the light was back (back then, neither had asked the other one who she was scared of seeing when she closed her eyes). It takes Rose making some joke about Rey using the force ( _that’s not how it works!)_ for Rey to finally touch her. It was supposed to be a playful shove but the moment her hand touched Rose’s shoulder, they both knew. No one commented when they were late to the morning debriefing the next day.

Rose stands in the shadows behind Rey and Finn as they announce the new peace. None of the Resistance leaders bother looking happy as they explain the terms. The First Order will keep the majority of it's current systems but will not attempt encroachment into any old Republic territory or systems or new Resistance planets. All war prisoners on both sides will be released immediately. In areas where the edges of the Order border the Resistance, a buffer zone of neutral space will be established. Rey and Poe handle the highlights, while Finn takes over the details. In the years after the deaths of most of high command, Finn had stepped up as their main source of First Order stratagem. As a peace treaty looked more and more likely, he had fallen into the unlikely role of diplomat. There had been a few upsets on both sides from the decision to have a former storm trooper play ambassador but in the end he was the only one who truly understood the psyche of both sides well enough to prevent blasters being drawn at every meeting. Rose spaced out for the details. She wasn't happy about the deal, had made her opinions loudly known. In public, she was a beacon of fury for the war hawks - how could the resistance make a bed with genocidal tyrants?

In private, she had wept when Rey told her. Months later and she would still wake up in the middle of night with the image of the slave children and their Fathier’s imprinted on her eyelids. On those nights Rey would say nothing, just hold her close. Whisper the names of every system they had liberated, how far they had come.

( _notfarenoughnotfarenough)_.

Her sister's laughter. The commander's face when he gave her the news. Rey nuzzles her cheek, wiping the tears away with her own cheek. It should not be enough, really, will not bring back the dead, will not bring a entire fucking system back but Rose sleeps without dreams the rest of the night and it is enough, in the end.

“We will come back for them”, Rey promises, the next morning. “Do you remember what you told Finn on that day? We have to save the things we love. No more Holdo's, no more Luke’s. We will win this war with treaties and diplomacy. Ky- Their leader is cruel, but he can be reasoned with. I know it.” Whenever Rey speaks like that, she gets the same look in her eyes as when she fought during the war. Determination and fire and fear all at once. Rose fell in love the first time she saw it. Now she just wants to kiss her soft again, take away the fire to stop it from burning Rey to nothing.

They've learned better than to fight over Kylo Ren. Rey will never fully hate him and Rose will never entirely forgive her for going to him. She thinks she might understand, though, as much as she resents it. Rey wakes up sobbing too. Sometimes it is the dreams of her childhood, of parents never coming back, of sands that never end. Other time she won't tell Rose what she dreamed of. She just clenches at Rose's arms while Rose kisses her over and over, trying to make Rey believe that Rose is real, she's not leaving, she's here, she's staying. Rose wonders if what Rey sees in those dreams is also a little boys face.  She thinks Rey dreams of a face illuminated by the glow of a light saber and the smell of smoke.

Poe and his squadron watch Grand Marshall Hux deliver the news of a treat to his troops. He spins it as the great mercy of their empire, of course. A decision to not crush the remaining systems, to focus instead on the glory of those loyal to the order. Poe takes a shot anytime someone successfully throws a chip in the mouth of the General's holo-projection. Ren is there, his robes largely unchanged from the war time. A few touches of gold accents are the only nod to his new status. He doesn't speak during the announcement, merely gives approving nods at Hux. Next to the pristine whiteness of his background, the Sith (Rose can almost hear Rey objecting) looks like a void. A blackhole at the center of the First Order.

It's remarkably quiet after. Once the protests on both sides die down, little news is heard of any real importance. The Order is busy repairing, coalescing it's fractured systems into a functional empire. The New Republic is in talks on where to place a new capital, how to build a government again. Rose is bored to tears by most of it. Rey is obliged by her status in the war to attend most of the talks but she ditches whenever she gets a legitimate excuse to spend the days with Rose. They make plans to explore cities across the galaxy, see all the things the war never let them. Most days they barely get to the door before they fall on each other.

Hux and Ren get married two years into the peace. It's no real shock for anyone - even during Hux's speeches, his leader's looks had been anything but subtle. Finn rambles at her during lunch about the strategic important of it, the symbolic and literal union of the mystic and military halves of the Order. Poe supplies that Hux has a nice ass. The conversation quickly descends into the ethics of checking out the man whose ship you are in the process of attempting to gun down. Rose leaves when Poe and Finn start staring a little too intently at each other's lips. _Boys_.

Rose and Rey are married the next year, when the peace has settled enough to allow them a few hours a day to plan and just be. To learn how to love each other slowly, instead of with the desperation of two people ready to die. It's Rey who suggests it. She's on top of Rose, straddling her hips, lips flush from kissing already, giddy with laughter.

“If _Kylo_ can get married, why the _kriff_ aren't we?”

 Rose laughs, drawing her down for another kiss, which quickly turns into Rey peeling Rose out of her uniform. The smile never leaves her eyes. After, in bed, they meet eyes and both realize at once that they it wasn't a joke. They need this, this permanent reminder that they stayed. They never ran. They never will.

BB8 carries the rings.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this at midnight and edited it at 6 am between naps and coffee breaks.


End file.
